


the red herald

by rukafais



Category: Fallen London | Echo Bazaar
Genre: Gen, alien spacebats do not enjoy being grounded, kind of gross
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 04:19:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1331653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"For what might be hours, you listen to the beating of your heart. A kind of phantasmagoria comes upon you. Your body is a stranger to you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the red herald

**Author's Note:**

> An expansion of something inspired by Black Crown that I wrote MANY MOONS AGO. now you can all enjoy it too and be grossed out forevermore

_Blood thrums through his veins. He is packed into a frame, raw and red, scrabbling with futile and tiring motions at the hood that covers his face. A painful growth seeps over his skin._  
  
 _It is all he can do to prevent himself from screaming,_ when he wakes.  
  
The dreams are not entirely accurate. But the sensation is familiar.  
  
The cloaks are stifling. He wants to tear all of them off, or if not, peel them one by one. By this time they are a second skin. He fears the gush of vital fluids, prickling pain and his body's retribution, should he try; they seem glued to his flesh. He picks at them on occasion and fancies that here or there he spies, twisting through the fabric, his own lifeblood.  
  
He feels hot and weak, though the Neath lends itself little to these weathers and moods (except false-summer, which for all its falseness is a miserable affair for a great majority of the populace - including him); these brittle limbs are not used to the lack of sun.  
  
He remembers those things, in the wake of dreams. He remembers how alien all this is.  
  
He remembers the hot-cold light of stars, the weightlessness of space, and the rushing suddenness of capture. The breathless absence of emptiness.  
  
This world, hollow as it is, is so loud; the air pushes down, forcing their postures, their soft spines and shallow bones, to change. To cramp.  
  
Lit by the weak and feeble glimmering of newborn stars crawling wearily from place to place, he learns to breathe and fills his lungs with darkness.   
  
He never does feel well again, though; he cannot remember what it feels like, to be well. The dreams itch in the back of his mind and make his malleable flesh complain; 'this is true'.  
  
He hopes never to be crammed into a frame. He does not desire that.  
  
But he has never felt well. And that is true enough.


End file.
